


Fog Cutters

by misslonelyhearts



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Fog Warriors, Post-Game(s), Seheron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/pseuds/misslonelyhearts





	Fog Cutters

What makes fog beautiful is the evenness of the light it diffuses.  Isabela frowns.  At sea, this quality also makes it nearly impossible to detect shadows, distance, or anything remotely useful for navigation.  But, it is pretty.  If she hadn’t herself watched the sunrise not two hours earlier she could have sworn it was dusk.  Fenris makes no mention of what might lie on the other end of this soup.  He moves only to prop one foot against the bow, and to tuck his fingers into the places where his boiled wool coat isn’t frosted with salt.  Foreign boots make him heavier on her eyes, too.  The fog moves for them, parting and passing over the elf’s curling hair.  As her eyes roam sidelong at his profile cutting through the mist, Isabela wonders which thing obscures which.

The tender ducks down into one wave after another, its rowers only occasionally looking to their captain for orders from between rolling shoulders and the beat of grunts.  Until Fenris mumbles otherwise to her, they simply move forward, and try not to drift in the fog.  Anchored somewhere behind them, a half hour or so into the morning’s weather, lies the _Merciless._

“Love, I hate to be a bother.”  She begins, cupping her chilled fingertips and heating them with her breath.  “But, we _are_ heading in the right direction, yes?”

Green eyes narrow, as if squinting will disperse the clouds, or distance her questions.  But, she sighs against his cheek, bare arm slung across his shoulder, and turns her face to the shrouded sea.

“This is the way.”  He says at last, and lifts his chin off to the left.  “Look.  There.”

She’ll never tell him how much she hates that his eyes are sharper than hers.  And sure as day, a shape emerges from the fog.  It’s a landmass, at first black and grey and wholly unrecognizable, then becoming a thing she understands as the boat brings them closer.  Isabela knows the sound of island breakers from the rest of the ocean’s topside rustling.

“Hard on starboard, lads!” Her voice crackles across the water, and the oarsmen shift their pace.  The tender heaves slightly, and their course corrects to face the land.

And she forgets to breathe, following what must be the same instinct for Fenris.  Two sets of fingers tighten in wool as the fog pulls away, translucent curtains pushed aside from the staggering thing jutting out into the ocean waves.  If the island itself had been a frigate Isabela would have been less surprised.  It cuts a white scar across the horizon, marrying the green-black sea with the sky’s blue veil.

“Darling.” Neither is sure if she’s addressing the monolithic coast or the elf’s dark features.  Fenris nods, quiet.

The crew draws them nearer to the upthrust cliffs, white as teeth or birch stripped bare, and Isabela makes a sound in her throat.  She spies a solitary figure standing watch.  The kossith leans on a spear, unmoving, and for a moment appears to be nothing more than a spectral statue, with the very stone beneath it carved into its legs.  But the sea wind roils, clutching at white hair, and the warrior draws a hand across its face.  It’s a gesture who’s familiarity tugs queerly at Isabela’s heart.  How often, how many times in a day, had she swept salt spray carefully from her eyes?

“I can’t remember seeing them without paint.  And, those clothes.” Not armor exactly, but something that moves like leaves…or sails.

Fenris looks at her.  She fails at anything but staring at the kossith.

“Perhaps that is because you’ve only seen Qunari.”

“He’s not…?” When she cuts her eyes to where the answer lies, Fenris is already looking at the cliffs again.

“No, _she_ is not.”

As the boat trips between swells, its occupants stare raptly at the contrast of the emerald shoreline, capping and sweeping out over the chalk-white crags that plunge into the Boeric ocean.

Isabela’s eyes finally drift from the warrior on the precipice.   Behind that figure, creeping into view, are faces, pale and wary.  They appear slowly amid the verdant thickness looming over the small boat.  The visages are kossith, elven …and a surprising number of humans.  Children lean on bows and staves twice as tall as they, one foot tucked into the opposite knee, easy as marsh birds. These people are the fog itself, solemn and clever, their bodies indistinct in the forest, their faces coming forward all the same.  She cannot take them all in, the effect of their stealth is dizzying, like watching pattern within pattern stand out by slow degrees in some bit of weaving.  Her neck cranes to capture the jungle tapestry unfolding above them, the silent panorama of warriors that greet these strangely dressed visitors like so much sea-tossed flotsam.

Behind her, the crew stops oaring long enough to drag their knitted caps from their heads and gawk.  None speaks.  Even the deeply hardened among them, the ones bearing the deepest scars, and the furious folds of cynicism around their mouths …even these men and women utter nothing but awe choked gasps.

She feels small, and her breath is shallow.  Isabela’s used to aching muscles, the fatigue of boat-borne balance and bracing is almost a comfort.  What she feels is so different from that.  It is the kind of wonder that saps the soul, and she bears it for the calm forces at work in those trees.  As they pass beneath the cliff, the lone Fog Warrior gazes down at them, at Fenris, and bows her head so that the paired curl of those horns points skyward.

There’s something in her throat, and Isabela is sure it’s her stomach.  There’s something in her hand, and she knows it’s the elf’s hand.

“We’ve made it.  This is …Seheron.”  It’s a child’s voice, concave, and though it’s not unsure, the sound of it is lost to everyone but Isabela.  Whatever she might say would be like so much lapping of waves on the side of the tender.  So they keep silent, and they keep the curve of their hands locked that way, even when the deep, mournful call of a keras rolls out over the cliffs to crash through the very hearts in their chests.


End file.
